How to enter quantity at product level instead of variant level?

[brl23]

Hello!

I'm ripping my hair out here on day 2 of trying to find a solution. I have what I think is such a simple issue, but for the life of me cannot find a fix that isn't an absurd on-going monthly subscription.

Scenerio:

---------------

I have one product (a bag) on my website. I want to sell these in bundles of 100, 250 and 500. So I set up a 'quantity' variant for 100, 250 and 500. Obviously each variant is a different price, so I update the prices accordingly next to the variants. They are all the same product, so I give them all the same SKU. That all works great.

The issue is when it comes to inventory levels. Shopify doesn't natively let you set a inventory quantity at the PRODUCT level. They want you to enter inventory at the VARIANT level. Which is a problem obviously, because all the variants are pulling from the same physical inventory.

---------------

So this leads me to installing 3rd party apps to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the pricing on these is absurd. Fair enough if you're a large business with huge inventory and lots of sales, I guess $10/month or something extra isn't a big deal. But if you're a micro business literally just starting out, with one single product, it's overkill to be paying an ongoing monthly subscription, forever. Unfortunately most apps don't have a 'pay as you grow' model. It's generally $10-$30/month straight from the start, and I simply can't warrant that.

I've tried searching for a solution and all I'm getting is many forum posts of people with the same issue, and some developer of a paid app responding to try and get the sale. I guess I'm just reaching out as a last ditch effort to see if anyone has managed to solve this issue without paying an absurd amount? I don't mind paying a one-off fee, but I won't pay ongoing monthly. It just doesn't make sense.

Thanks for any and all help. Apologies for the rant!

[MOTHMatters]

Hi, I'm gathering by no replies that you've not had any luck resolving this? We're in a similar situation where we have a product (ie sourdough) & want to have a set amount to sell but that customers can choose a variant (without that being capped). 

Similarly I don't want to pay for yet another app to do something that should be quite easy to fix at Shopify level. 

[brl23]

Unfortunately, no, this issue was never resolved. A paid app COULD resolve it, but I'm stubborn and don't believe a simple feature like this should be an ongoing subscription.

[Imogen]

Hi there, @brl23 and @MOTHMatters. Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the Shopify Community with your feedback and thoughts around this inventory situation. As both of you have mentioned, currently, Shopify doesn't offer a native solution for this sort of inventory tracking, but third party apps can be used to achieve this functionality. With that being said, we're always collecting feedback on ways we can improve the Shopify platform, and feedback is an important part of that. I'm going to make sure our Feedback Team is aware of this thread and the sentiments shared here, that way folks internally know how valuable this functionality would be if offered natively. Thanks again for your feedback, and helping us identify pain-points for merchants across the globe.

[larsaivystudios]

I'd also be happy if product level inventory tracking was a feature.

Third parties are selling solutions to this problem (through "item bundling", mostly), so I'm guessing the issue is quite common.

[Vinz]

It's unbelievable that we are still facing the same issue year after year while it's such an easy feature to implement. Inventory for the main product, option for inventory for the Variants. An example, you sell books, you offer the Variant "add signature", you have 100 books but unlimited signatures, if people buy the Variant, Shopify will consider it's unlimited stock, OR if by mistake you have put 100 (for Books and for Signature) then Shopify will assume you have 200 in stock. Shopify can't even deal with that? after years and many people asking for it. PLEASE DO SOMETHING, thank you!